The Cabinet of Ministers published a decree on April 12 that makes it possible for foreign universities to open branches in Ukraine.
Foreign universities could do so even before the decree, according to the Ukrainian law on higher education. But the law didn’t specify which foreign universities could enter Ukraine and how they could receive a license here.
The new decree has clarified the procedure. According to it, the Ukrainian Ministry of Education can only grant a license to foreign universities ranked among the top 3,000 in the world. Russian universities cannot open their branches in Ukraine.
Foreign universities can work in any Ukrainian city except for the biggest — Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro and Odesa. These cities have enough universities, the government said, while new branches are needed most in regions that lack skilled specialists.
To open a branch in Ukraine, foreign universities have to submit an application describing where they want to set up, what they want to teach here and how many people they want to employ, among other details. The universities also have to confirm that they have experience with opening branches in other countries.
By “opening Ukrainian borders” to foreign universities, Ukraine wants to make the local education system more similar to Europe’s, said Andriy Vitrenko, the Deputy Minister of Education.
However, local experts are skeptical. They say Ukraine is not attractive to foreign giants like Harvard, Oxford or Yale, and even if it was, the country would not receive much profit because the scale of their investments, if any, would be too small. Besides, local students couldn’t afford to pay tuition for these universities in Ukraine.
Experts said that by publishing this decree, the Ministry of Education, spearheaded by controversial minister Serhiy Shkarlet, once accused of plagiarism in his doctoral thesis, wants to improve its reputation.
“It looks like a PR campaign because foreign universities are not eager to open branches here,” said Mykola Skyba, an expert from the Ukrainian Institute of the Future.
First of all, many big-name universities like Stanford in the U.S. or Cambridge in the U.K. do not even have branches in other countries. Only some of them, like New York University, have branches in Abu Dhabi or Shanghai because the demand there is high.
It is very unlikely that these universities will choose Ukraine as their next destination because the country’s market is too complicated and unprofitable, said Yevhen Nikolaiev, an expert at the think tank OsvitAnalityka.
According to him, Ukrainian students would rather move to another country to study than attend a costly foreign university in Ukraine.
Foreign universities also prefer to attract talented students to their countries rather than to open branches in Ukraine, Skyba said.
Studying abroad is a popular option for many Ukrainians. They usually move to Poland or other European countries, hoping to find a well-paying job, even if the quality of education is similar to Ukraine’s, according to experts.
As of October 2020, over 1 million students were enrolled in 455 local universities. Up to 70,000 Ukrainians are studying in the EU, almost half of them in Poland.
Controversial decree
The decree said that Ukraine will only give licenses to universities ranked among the best 3,000 in the world. However, the most prestigious rankings, including QS World University Rankings, The Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities usually evaluate up to 1,000 institutions.
Some experts said that Ukraine’s Education ministry just mentioned a ranking that doesn’t exist, while the others claim that Ukraine wants to open its market even for low-quality universities at the bottom of the ranking.
Not allowing foreign university branches in cities that are most popular among Ukrainian students is also a headscratcher. Entering other Ukrainian cities where the demand and purchasing power of the population is low makes no sense for foreigners, according to Skyba.
“If foreign universities saw the potential in Ukraine, they would have opened their branches here earlier,” Skyba said.
Alternative option
Rather than making an implausible promise to attract foreign universities to Ukraine, the country should focus on changing its education system from the inside, according to Inna Sovsun, a lawmaker from the Voice party.
“Even if some foreign universities open their branches here, it won’t pressure the system hard enough to change it,” she added.
According to Nikolaiev, it makes more sense for Ukrainian universities to open joint programs with international universities or organize exchange programs allowing students to study abroad.
Today, there are few universities with foreign founders in Ukraine. Among them is Ukrainian-American Concordia University co-founded by Concordia University Wisconsin in Kyiv in 1997.
In Dec. 2020, former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker said that the U.S. plans to open another American University in the capital.
The university will begin offering online classes in fall 2021 and open to early graduate and undergraduate students in 2022.
The project will cost $26 million. By 2026, the university will host 3,900 students and bring in $25.8 million in revenue, according to estimates.
